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Art Rosenbaum --
The Chronicle's voice of sports
Dwight
Chapin, Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writers
Tuesday,
December 23, 2003
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Art Rosenbaum, the gentleman sportswriter and editor who spent the
entirety of his rich, 60-year career in sports journalism at The Chronicle, has
died.
Mr. Rosenbaum, 91, whose writing was as graceful and skilled as
the remarkable feats of the athletes he covered, died Sunday at the Jewish Home
for the Aged in
He loved watching sports, he loved writing about them and he loved
convincing non-fans that sports were worth caring about.
"Sport is nonsense, but a wonderful kind of nonsense,'' he
wrote in 1990, in his weekly Chronicle column, replying to a woman who had
called sports trivial and nonsensical.
"Sport provides a common base. ... Sport has an animalistic
integrity. ... Sport is all very patterned and easy to take, despite the
agonies and the ecstasies. There's a plot with a beginning and an end and yet,
because of the improvisation within, there is an ever-changing story line and,
because of the continuity, never a final ending. Does that make sense, ma'am?''
Newspaper colleagues said Mr. Rosenbaum cared about his writing
and cared about the athletes he wrote about.
"I was always struck by Art's command of the language in his
columns during an era when cliches still were the
norm in Bay Area sports sections," said Chronicle Sports Editor Glenn
Schwarz. "But what I'll remember most is his kindness and
thoughtfulness.''
Mr. Rosenbaum was a native of
"I got 10 cents a word," he once recalled, "but was
limited to $25 a month."
His obvious talent led to his being put on "on-call"
status by sports editor Harry B. Smith, while he attended
Two years later, Mr. Rosenbaum became full time at The Chronicle,
by his own account helped by passage of the National Recovery Act, which
encouraged employers to hire, and he promptly began working six days a week , 10 hours a day.
"It was tough on the social life," he said. "You
always had to take a girl out after midnight, and girls who wanted to go out
then were hard to find. "
But by June of 1936, he found someone who was willing to go along
with the hours and the turbulent lifestyle, and he and his bride, Shirley,
honeymooned on a two-week train trip to and from a Stanford-Columbia football
game in
Mr. Rosenbaum's byline grew familiar on the golf and college
football beats. In 1954, he became an urbane and widely read,
five-day-a-week columnist, covering everything from the World Series, Rose Bowl
and Super Bowl to six- day bicycle races, rugby and yachting -- not to mention
10 Olympiads.
In 1952, he was honored in "Best Sports Stories" of the
year for his account of the '51 Cal-Stanford Big Game, becoming the first news
coverage winner from the West Coast.
In the late 1950s, he was promoted to editor of the sports page,
gaining a reputation as a fair, compassionate and mild-mannered administrator,
the same qualities that marked his writing. He held the post for 25 years.
Bob Stevens, the late Chronicle baseball writer, once said of him,
"A man could not ever have asked for a better boss. I don't think I ever
saw him lose his temper."
For the last several years of his career, Mr. Rosenbaum wrote a
highly regarded weekly sports column. In 1990, with characteristic grace and
gentleness, he defended NFL referees, who local fans thought had blown a
crucial call.
"Did you ever try to peer through the windows of a passing
BART car rushing through a station? No way. To the naked eye, everything runs
together. That's a football official's problem -- he is not able to get a total
fix, even though he's 'right on top of the play.' ...
A football official's job has nice hours but terrifying immediacy.''
In addition to his Chronicle duties, Mr. Rosenbaum spent many
years as a special correspondent for Sports Illustrated, and he also led
popular tours to the Olympics. He was a strong supporter of the Bay Area Sports
Hall of Fame.
When he retired from The Chronicle in 1991, some 850 people showed
up for a dinner in his honor at the Fairmont Hotel, and enough money was raised
to fund three annual scholarships for Bay Area high school sportswriters.
Mr. Rosenbaum's favorite sport was baseball.
"The combination of the individuality and team play in
baseball is, to me, what makes it the best sport,'' he wrote.
He was at Seals Stadium on the night in 1933 when Joe DiMaggio
broke the Pacific Coast League's consecutive-game hitting streak.
"Before Joe's last at-bat, there were reporters and
photographers with flash cameras gathered all over the field, not five feet
from home plate," he said. "When Joe got a single, what a scene that
was."
Mr. Rosenbaum said the most memorable athlete he covered was
Willie Mays, but not for anything Mays did on the baseball field.
"I was playing golf with Willie in a foursome at
Mr. Rosenbaum was a master of clean, clear English. In 1999, at
the age of 87, he contributed a long and moving tribute to DiMaggio, who was
his friend.
"Mysterious but pleasant,'' Mr. Rosenbaum wrote. "There was an aloofness about him that served his
persona yet, for those who knew him best, he was just Joe. ... As the years
rushed by, he found happiness on the road, never staying in one place more than
a few days. He became
Mr. Rosenbaum, a slender wiry man with a warm smile and a genuine
interest in those around him, was known for encouraging countless journalism
students and for spending long hours going over the writing of youngsters who
sought his help.
Mr. Rosenbaum is survived by two granddaughters, Cindy Viola of
San Francisco and Jennifer Viola of Los Angeles, and by his brother, San
Francisco journalist and columnist Jack Rosenbaum, with whom he shared a room
at the Jewish Home for the Aged in recent months.
Mr. Rosenbaum's wife of 66 years, Shirley, died last year.
Funeral services will be held Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. at Sinai
Memorial Chapel,